There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in ~ Leonard Cohen

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The Social Network (2010)

Directed by David Fincher
Written by Aaron Sorkin based on the book by Ben Mezrich
(number 384)

This movie starts as it means to go on, with cutting dialogue, social realism and a refusal to deify Mark Zuckerberg. I love this line so much:

Erica Albright: You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.

Aaron Sorkin is of course, excellent in politics and courtroom drama. I loved A Few Good Men and a lot of people I know love the West Wing.

The film is beautifully shot in saturated greys and golds, the soundtrack is by turns calming and discordant, perfectly matching the content of the scenes. I’m not 100% in love with the framing of the court case and flashbacks to the ‘past’ to show how things unfolded.

The best irony about this movie is that as I’m typing up this blog post and watching the movie, I’m also on Facebook. I use it to keep in contact with my direct and extended family, friends all over the globe and the person I live with. I’ve used the messenger chat function to co-write a novel with a friend in West Virginia. The way Facebook inhabits space in my life is undeniable and I’m not sure I can extricate myself. Come to that I don’t really want to either.

Does it make me love the people?
Jessie Eisenberg is great as Mark, you really do want to punch his face. I love Justin Timberlake in this, I love him as an actor. He’s brilliant in this, but also love him in Black Snake Moan a lot. He’s so smooth as Sean, so smooth and fast talking and projecting everything that’s cool. Andrew Garfield is adorable too, I feel for him as a character… although it is somewhat depressing that they cast a white British boy as a Brazilian man.

Bechdel test: No. Erica talks to her roommate but it’s about Mark blogging about her. Also I don’t think her roommate is named. The women are almost always just sex objects in this movie, they’re the ‘Silicon Valley sluts’ and the cheated on girlfriends and the girls they ‘win’ by being cool and good businessmen. They’re giggling on the couch while playing video games ‘wrong’ and being irrationally angry at being ignored. It’s not a movie about women.

Best line:
Eduardo: (swings as if to punch Sean and then pulls back when he flinches) I like standing next to you, Sean. You make me look tough.

State of Mind: The movie is slick, beautiful and gorgeous. The people in it are awful, and I don’t know how much of it is true, but of course it doesn’t truly matter. This version of events is what people know best, and it’s presented in such a way that you believe in it enough. I don’t think the end bit with Mark staring at Erica’s facebook profile is anything but creepy though. Why did they do it? Is it just to hammer home that he’s alone in the world? We already got that when he asked out the lawyer woman and she turned him down. I guess it’s a full circle reference, I don’t think it’s necessary.